Flight Altitude and Resolution: P4 vs. P4P

TooMuchCoffey · Feb 23, 2018

Hello all!

I'm a civil engineer and we've been using a Phantom 4 to produce aerials and topography information to develop conceptual designs and determine the feasibility of some engineering projects. GCPs are being used, which are measured by our survey crew. We've been laying out flight plans and performing the flights using the Drone Deploy app, and then we process everything in Pix4D.

For a number of reasons, we've now upgraded to the Phantom 4 Pro. With the Phantom 4 Pro's 20 MP camera (versus the P4's 12 MP camera), I suspect that we can fly higher (and therefore spend less time flying) and produce aerial imagery of the same quality as what we were getting from the P4. Is my logic flawed or does that make sense? Looking for any thoughts / ideas / pitfalls.

Thanks!

higherperspective · Feb 23, 2018

I know that the panoramas I shoot with the P4P are much higher res than ones shot at same location and altitude with my P3P, so my guess is your logic is solid. Someone techier than me can probably tell you how much higher you can fly for the same relative resolution.

Tomas Wangen · Feb 23, 2018

TooMuchCoffey said:
Hello all!

I'm a civil engineer and we've been using a Phantom 4 to produce aerials and topography information to develop conceptual designs and determine the feasibility of some engineering projects. GCPs are being used, which are measured by our survey crew. We've been laying out flight plans and performing the flights using the Drone Deploy app, and then we process everything in Pix4D.

For a number of reasons, we've now upgraded to the Phantom 4 Pro. With the Phantom 4 Pro's 20 MP camera (versus the P4's 12 MP camera), I suspect that we can fly higher (and therefore spend less time flying) and produce aerial imagery of the same quality as what we were getting from the P4. Is my logic flawed or does that make sense? Looking for any thoughts / ideas / pitfalls.

Thanks!

Not sure about the P4, but with p4p you will at 120m height get a resolution of 3.6cm / pixel. At 60m height 1.8cm/pixel etc. This is visible in dronedeploy (when you configure the mission) so you can compare with the P4.

ryantrax · Feb 23, 2018

Yes, I've done the same with my P4P (20mp) and my Mavic (12mp) I can fly much higher with the P4P and get similar if not better resolution on my Geotiff's. I do always try to fly as low as the environment allows if I need really high detail.

alokbhargava · Feb 23, 2018

TooMuchCoffey said:
Hello all!

I'm a civil engineer and we've been using a Phantom 4 to produce aerials and topography information to develop conceptual designs and determine the feasibility of some engineering projects. GCPs are being used, which are measured by our survey crew. We've been laying out flight plans and performing the flights using the Drone Deploy app, and then we process everything in Pix4D.

For a number of reasons, we've now upgraded to the Phantom 4 Pro. With the Phantom 4 Pro's 20 MP camera (versus the P4's 12 MP camera), I suspect that we can fly higher (and therefore spend less time flying) and produce aerial imagery of the same quality as what we were getting from the P4. Is my logic flawed or does that make sense? Looking for any thoughts / ideas / pitfalls.

Thanks!

Yes technically you should be able to fly higher to get the same results but not in the proportion to increases MP as the amount of light that gets collected also affects clarity. You got to try and see what best you can achieve by altering other parameters.